


Where will these Bags of Bones go to Rest?

by melonprins



Series: like jagged pieces in a fucked up jigsaw puzzle [1]
Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Cheating, i feel like mary is a very interesting character and also im bitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonprins/pseuds/melonprins
Summary: Mary looks back on her life as she eyes Robert from across the bar.





	Where will these Bags of Bones go to Rest?

**Author's Note:**

> im fucking emo about mary and robert
> 
> title from the song Bones by Katie and I

She stares at him from across the bar. He’s in a booth, leather jacket still on despite the warmth inside _Jim & Kim’s._

She wants to be mad, can almost feel the familiar heat swirling between her ribs. Mary knows she was at first. Used to clenched her teeth as Joseph left their bed at night, when he thought she was asleep. When he thought she wouldn’t notice.

Of all the things Mary remembers, it’s Joseph coming home that sticks out the most. She remembers how she wouldn’t – couldn’t – sleep until he'd come back, not until she would hear the front door click open and shut softly, hear the careful shuffle of feet into their bedroom. Not until she would feel his soft lips on her shoulder, light as a feather. Not until she would feel how his hair was just the slightest bit damp.

She knows he showers afterwards, to prevent the smell from exposing him. But Joseph isn’t careful enough, he isn’t thorough enough because he doesn’t think Mary suspects a thing. He thinks he’s so perfect. He’s wrong.

Mary swirls her wine glass elegantly. She hasn’t had anywhere near enough.

She remembers feeling confused, angry. _Is she not what he wants?_ The thought used to make ice settle in her gut, used to freeze her bones. He had told her so many wonderful things on their wedding night, in the beginning, before everything went to shit. She recalls – clearly, even now – how he had whispered promises of love and devotion for eternity. _Pity_ , she thinks not for the first time, _how people have different views on what eternity means._

Mary remembers blaming herself. 

The memory of her failure as a mother – or what she once thought of as a failure – still makes her teeth clench painfully. She remembers Joseph’s face, how sad and empathetic he had been, how it had twisted with time, frustration sprouting over his skin like weeds, like thorns.

Mary looks down into her wine. Oh, how an unborn baby can change everything.

She remembers coming here, to Maple Bay, to their nice house close to the church. Their second chance. _This is it_ , she remembers thinking, _this is where we’ll heal._

And it worked. She finally had Chris, Joseph had been ecstatic and Mary had felt love for the first time in what felt like decades. It worked, for a while it did.

Two years after that marks the arrival of Christian and Christine. There were two of them, twins and she loved them, _loves_ them. Her three small kids, all resembling Joseph. Mary closes her eyes, remembers how she didn’t mind it then.

She opens her eyes slowly, stares out over the bar, her vision cloudy. There’s a heavy weight on her chest and it feels like misery.

She’s on her third glass of wine now. She wishes she drank less. She wishes for more wine. She wishes her children could’ve gotten a better mother. She wishes – bitterly – that she’d never fallen for someone like Joseph.

Mary takes a sip of her wine, swallows bitterly as she recalls giving birth to Crish. She loves her baby. She loves all of her children. But when yet another blond, blue eyed child came out of her–.

Mary’s mouth twists, curls sourly. She remembers intimately what choking back tears feels like. It had been like she wasn’t even there. It haunts her, at night when Joseph’s arm wraps around her waist. She’s a prop, a side character to Joseph’s main story, _a means to an end_. There’s no obvious evidence of her anywhere. She has no part in her own children. 

Four children. She has given him four children. But she still isn’t enough for him. She still doesn’t satisfy him.

Devastation. Anger. Self doubt. Defeat.

 _Fine_ , she remembers thinking, resigned. _If he can’t be happy with me, at least he’ll be happy with someone else._

Yet there’s always something tugging at her when he leaves. She wonders often when it had begun. Was it before or after Crish? Maybe it was before the twins. Maybe it had started even before that, when yet another tragedy had struck them.

 _Was it worth it?_ That’s what she had wanted to ask them; whatever type of person Joseph had preferred over her, she wanted to ask them. _Was Joseph worth it? Was he worth destroying someone’s life?_

She didn’t know it then, but looking at him now, the same person who she had wanted to blame for everything, everything wrong and broken and ruined with her marriage, with her first love. Looking at him now, she doesn’t have to ask.

The deep set circles under his eyes, the sag in his shoulders, the neglect of self care. It all reminds her of herself; as if chasing the bottom of a bottle will erase – _replace_ – the warm look of affection in blue eyes neither of them will get back.

So Mary knocks back her fifth glass of wine, gestures for another. Neil is already there with the bottle. She makes her way across the room, only swaying a little bit, and gracelessly takes a seat across from the man Mary has tried and failed to hate. She knows he recognizes her. He is startled, twitchy, gripping his glass of whiskey too tight. 

Mary leans on her elbows, head in her hand, eyeing his tense shoulders, the darting of his eyes. To the door and back to her and over her shoulder. She starts to open her mouth, to tell him to settle down, to tell him how she hates him for what he has done, to tell him everything she has bottled up over these past years, but all that comes out of her wine stained, chapped lips is a raspy:

”So, he got to you too, huh?”

**Author's Note:**

> is this the end of that ? who knows !!!!! vote now on your phones (meaning yeah if y'all want i might continue this ,,)


End file.
